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OPEN DATA, THE DAY AFTER: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW — President Barack Obama and White House officials spent Thursday selling the need for more high-tech manufacturing and outlining a fine-tuned White House policy of providing government data to the masses and machines. Letting businesses and researchers play with government data has serious economic potential, they say, but this isn’t the first time we’ve heard the White House push the subject. So is anything new here?

--GETTING REAL: The White House has long touted its transparency and commitment to open government, but watchdog groups haven’t always bought it. This week’s open data initiative, though, may be more of the real deal. “In the past we’ve criticized them pretty loudly for saying ‘we’re resetting the default to openness’ for the seventh time. And what’s really different about this release or this set of policies, is that there’s a bunch of substance to what they’re requiring,” Sunlight Foundation Policy Director John Wonderlich told us. “It’s basically operationalizing the commitment.” (Read more from Wonderlich here: http://bit.ly/15Rnpct

--CULTURE SHIFT: The White House is right to talk about about the open data EO as a big deal. But in the same vein, it’s a big deal precisely because it’s such a culture shift from how government has traditionally operated. And that means it’ll be key to watch how agencies across the federal spectrum respond to such an order (especially since it tells them that data must be open “wherever possible” — we’re not totally sure what that means.) “There are so many entrenched dataset owners at agencies who don’t see the purpose of [open data.] So we’ll watch carefully the construction of those inventories,” said Hudson Hollister, executive director at the Data Transparency Coalition. “In order for these statements and directives to fully penetrate, the community has got to get involved.” The White House, by the way, knows it. That’s why they’re pushing a component of this week’s announcement called Project Open Data, which is designed to help agencies open up.

--WHAT’S AT STAKE: So, what’s the bottom line for citizens who aren’t tech entrepreneurs or app developers? Here’s how Federal Chief Information Officer Steve VanRoekel described the possibilities to reporters: “We hold huge potential here to really enhance house purchasing, as one example. ... I as a potential homebuyer want to know, what are crime statistics in the area? Is there an organic farm within 25 miles of my house? What is the energy usage of the area and energy production? What broadband capabilities exist where I’m buying this home?”

GOOD FRIDAY MORNING and welcome to Morning Tech, where we’re looking forward to getting back on the softball diamond this weekend with the Allbritton Filibusters. Pre-game pep talks are welcome at abyers@politico.com and @byersalex, although we play pretty early on Saturdays — so we can’t promise we’ll be fully awake to read them. Instead, feel free to bother the rest of the team with tech tips and gossip over the weekend. You can find their contact info after speed read.

HOUSE LAWMAKERS GO BIG PICTURE ON LATEST CELLPHONE BILL; BUT DOES THAT HURT ITS CHANCES? — Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Jared Polis, Anna Eshoo and Thomas Massie have reignited the cellphone unlocking debate with a measure they’re calling the Unlocking Technology Act. Their bill, though, goes farther than that — it amends the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to make it legal to circumvent a technological protection measure, as long as the point of doing so isn’t to commit copyright infringement. That’s a bigger change than the March deluge of cellphone unlocking bills envisioned, and it’s got tech advocates smiling. “This does something that we’ve been advocating for, for a long time on the DMCA,” Public Knowledge’s Sherwin Siy told your MT-er. “It’s a much broader, more ambitious bill.” At the same time, the bill’s own aspirations could be its own death knell. Judiciary leaders on the Hill have indicated that they’d prefer a simpler fix for legalizing cellphone unlocking — and they’ve already got their own bill, to boot. Of course, the House’s copyright hearings may provide an opportunity to bite off a bigger chunk of policy, so you never know. Just don’t expect too much too soon, as the committees in both Houses will be focused on immigration for a while.

MCCAIN CABLE FOCUS COMES AS VIDEO DEBATE LOOMS — The Arizona senator dropped his a la carte bill Thursday afternoon, calling current cable market practices “unfair and wrong.” The timing of the measure is no doubt pegged to next week’s state of video hearing in the Senate communications subcommittee — and it’s also a bit of a playing card for the congressional debate to come over reauthorizing STELA, the law that oversees how broadcast TV gets picked up by satellite providers. Stakeholders are already weighing in — the American Television Alliance and Parents Television Council are excited to see the bill, but “a government-mandated a la carte system is a lose — lose proposition,” the National Cable and Telecommunications Alliance says. (We’ll note for the record: McCain claimed on the floor Thursday that his bill contains no mandates.)

Going forward though, we’re watching for cable players to bring up the issue of price controls. The problem, presumably, would be that even if programming providers start selling channels to cable operators a la carte, they could offer individual channels at a high cost compared to the current process of selling channels in bundles — effectively making it unrealistic.

** The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) will be hosting The Cable Show — the industry’s largest cable and telecommunications convention — in Washington, DC, June 10-12. Experience a three-day immersion in digital media possibility, bringing together more than 10,000 participants from the digital media, entertainment and broadband ecosystem. Learn more: www.thecableshow.com **

HIGH-SKILLED IMMIGRATION AMENDMENTS TEED UP FOR NEXT WEEK -- With the completion of a marathon first day, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold at least two more sessions to tackle hundreds of amendments in the Gang of Eight immigration bill. Next week, high-skilled immigration has its chance. Sen. Orrin Hatch on Thursday stressed the importance of changing some H-1B provisions involving recruitment — the bill, he says, would leave the H-1B categories "unworkable for many U.S. employers.” Unless it is changed, he added, “this bill could encourage American companies to hire skilled foreign nationals abroad rather than in the United States." The group spent much of the daylong session on border security, where the one thing they agreed on was technology — both sides praised changes to E-Verify. Even Sen. Jeff Sessions called the electronic verification system one of the bill's few potential accomplishments. "If you complete that, that will be something that can work," he said, to resounding cheers. Jessica Meyers has more on the E-Verify praise fest, for Pros: http://politico.pro/147IevE

STAKEHOLDER PREP IS KEY AS COPPA UPDATE APPROACHES -- The FTC’s update to kids privacy rules is still several weeks away from going into effect, but the players in the children’s app and website spaces are finding themselves in need of gearing up to handle how the complex regulations affect the landscape. The Center for Digital Democracy, for example, is looking to bring on another lawyer to deal with kids privacy issues, according to a posting this week. That person will be tasked with investigating possible COPPA violations, among other things. “In addition to a new legal director whose responsibility will be on regulatory compliance, CDD will work with technologists and other experts to conduct its own ‘sweeps’ on data collection practices by leading children's online media companies,” Executive Director Jeff Chester said. “Based on our analysis, we expect to file a series of complaints and requests for investigations.” On the industry side, developers have a ticking clock before they need to comply with new and complex rules — but it’s not clear that most of them even know it. “We suspect that large numbers — perhaps the great vast majority — of application developers have no idea that their COPPA obligations have changed,” said Application Developers Association VP Tim Sparapani. The ones that do know, though, are likely assessing whether they need more lawyers or to do some re-engineering to ensure their kids products are kosher.

ADVOCATE ALERT: YOUR NEXT CFAA TALKING POINT — The National Security Agency made public this week a 2007 book that advises NSA staff on how to search for public info on the web that perhaps wasn’t meant to be public. The authors though, offer a disclaimer that undoubtedly will be used as evidence for the need to trim the purview of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. We go to Wired’s Kim Zetter for the goods:

“Nothing I am going to describe to you is illegal, nor does it in any way involve accessing unauthorized data,” the authors assert in their book. Instead it “involves using publicly available search engines to access publicly available information that almost certainly was not intended for public distribution.” You know, sort of like the “hacking” for which Andrew “weev” Aurenheimer was recently sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for obtaining publicly accessible information from AT&T’s website. (More here: http://bit.ly/10Jy2Fb)

WEEKEND WATCH: HOLDER SPEAKING AT UC BERKELEY LAW — The Attorney General is slated to speak to graduates of the California law school on Saturday, if you feel like listening for any tech talk from the country’s top prosecutor. Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time this week he’s made news in our world — he talked to a New Zealand radio station this week about the Megaupload case, although we didn’t learn a ton from that. There has been a resurgence of filings in that case, though, after two months of judicial silence. TorrentFreak has the latest, with Megaupload again asking for dismissal: http://bit.ly/15u390o

WATERCOOLER FODDER: ESPN MULLS SUBSIDIZING DATA PLANS — From The Wall Street Journal: “Some media companies whose mobile content gets a lot of traffic are considering arrangements with wireless carriers that would ensure their users can watch, surf and play as much as they want without being hit with stiff overage charges. ... Under one potential scenario, [ESPN] would pay a carrier to guarantee that people viewing ESPN mobile content wouldn't have that usage counted toward their monthly data caps ... No such arrangement is imminent, and ESPN isn't sure if the economics will work out, the people familiar with the matter said. There are also concerns that deals of this nature could attract the scrutiny of telecom regulators.” More here: http://on.wsj.com/15RocKr

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SPEED READ

STATE DEPARTMENT FORCES 3-D GUN BLUEPRINTS PULLED: The agency is citing international arms control laws, The Guardian reports: http://bit.ly/12i6jzE

** The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) will be hosting The Cable Show — the industry’s largest cable and telecommunications convention — in Washington, DC, June 10-12. Experience a three-day immersion in digital media possibility, bringing together more than 10,000 participants from the digital media, entertainment and broadband ecosystem. Learn more: www.thecableshow.com **